Happy 2022! As we enter a new month and a new secular year this week, let’s take a look at some of the more “popular” New Year’s Resolutions….and see what our tradition might have to teach us.
Exercise more/Lose weight.
It might surprise you to learn that the Shulchan Aruch, the seminal code of Jewish law (compiled by Joseph Caro in the 16th Century), seems to open with an exercise routine.
יתגבר כארי לעמוד בבוקר
One should strengthen like a lion to get up in the morning to serve their Creator….
Now, I love lions…but like most cats, they seem to spend a lot of time sleeping. So, what are we to learn about exercise, our bodies, and motivation from this text? Maybe, as one commentary suggests, that lions, by their nature, would rather sleep—but they know that they must rouse themselves as a matter of survival. For us, comfy in our warm beds, that is not motivation enough. So, maybe, as another commentary suggests, it is about the strength of the lion—we should wake up feeling strong and ready to face the day and its challenges.
The answer—and the motivation—seems to lie there, in the way that we face the day. And even more than the way, the answer seems to lie in the “why.” Our text teaches us to get up each and every morning to serve the Divine, to pursue our better selves, and to answer our better impulses. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, an 18th century Italian thinker, teaches that one of the commandments requires that we keep our bodies fit so that we can serve God, and that we derive our needs from the environment to achieve this goal. In this manner, we elevate ourselves even through such activities. Strengthening like a lion, then, is a physical act—meant to prepare us to best serve our Creator.
Each and every morning, we are meant to pray the words of Psalm 100, Verse 2:
עִבְד֣וּ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה בְּשִׂמְחָ֑ה בֹּ֥אוּ לְ֝פָנָ֗יו בִּרְנָנָֽה
Serve Adonai in gladness, come before God in joy.
If we are to get up like a lion, prepared and preparing to serve God—we are meant to do it in joy. Maybe this is the year for joyful movement, for celebrating what your body can do (rather than agonizing over what it can’t), and for using that time in a way that feels good.
For each of us, that movement is going to look different—and maybe the outcome (losing weight, or getting in shape, or exercising more) is less important than the reasons we do it: to be more present parents or grandparents, for mental health, or self-care…all of which are helping us be in greater service to ourselves, our world, and the Divine.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer